Дэвид Митчелл - Utopia Avenue

Luisa looks at Elf. They both look at Ivanka, ten steps away. She can hear. She gives no sign of caring. Is she paid by the hour? ‘We will not be connecting, Mr Stoker. Not in any life.’

‘Is disaster!’ Ivanka falls to her knees. ‘My eyelash … is lost! Everybody, look for!’ She studies the dark carpet. ‘Is black!’

Levon enters: ‘Look who’s arrived.’

It’s Jasper, walking in as if it’s nine o’clock this morning, not ten minutes before the show. ‘I need a glass of water.’

During the long and dramatic pause, Elf is tempted to go over and give him a hug; but something holds her back.

Dean finds his voice first. ‘Where the fucking hell were yer?’

‘Walking. I need a glass of water.’

Dean seizes a jug of iced water and empties it over Jasper.

Jasper stands there, soaked and dripping.

‘“ Walking ”? We’ve been shitting ourselves ’bout yer all day ; yer didn’t tell us if yer was alive or what ; just for sodding “ walking ”? Yer selfish bloody pillock !’

Jasper takes a glass of water from Elf and drinks it in one. ‘Another.’ Levon has magicked up a tea-towel and is dabbing Jasper’s face dry. Elf gets him a second glass. ‘Are you all right, Jasper?’

‘I am here to play. I want their energy.’

‘Are yer high?’ asks Dean. ‘Yer high, aren’t yer?’

‘He said not,’ reports Levon. ‘His pupils are okay.’

‘The … instrument. The—’

‘ That’s not high?’ scoffs Dean.

‘Let’s focus on the show,’ Levon tells him, ‘and what help Jasper needs. You’ve made your displeasure clear.’

‘I bloody haven’t. We had promo , de Zoet. Interviews. Work. Soundcheck. The set-list. We’re professionals. We’re on in ten minutes. No. It’s five now. “I went for a walk” is not good enough.’

Jasper is unmoved. ‘I gave him a day’s grace. To make peace.’

Him? Elf looks at Luisa. ‘Who, Jasper? Who’s “him”?’

Jasper stares at the dressing table mirrors. He walks over and brings his face up close. An ecstatic smile spreads across his face.

‘Jasper?’ asks Elf. ‘What are you doing? Jasper?’

Max and Brigit hurry in, having heard the news. ‘Glad you could join us, Jasper,’ says Max. ‘Can you play?’

‘That question is off the bloody menu,’ says Dean.

‘I wholeheartedly agree with Dean,’ says Howie Stoker.

‘De Zoet will play.’ Jasper watches his reflection turn and tilt.

Anyone would think this was his first encounter with a mirror. ‘What happened to you out there?’ asks Elf.

‘Later,’ Levon tells her, softly. ‘Later.’

‘Damn right,’ says Brigit. ‘We’ve got no warm-up act and you’re on now. I’m Brigit. This is my club. Get your ass here earlier tomorrow or I’m cutting your fees in half.’

Jasper walks past Brigit, takes his guitar out of its case, plugs it into a baby Vox in the corner and begins to tune up.

Brigit shakes her head in disgust and leaves.

‘All’s well that ends well, it seems,’ says Howie Stoker.

All is not well , thinks Elf. ‘If you’re having some kind of mental crisis, Jasper, you can—’

‘Bloody well have it in England, a week Friday,’ says Dean.

Jasper plays a G. ‘I am here to play. I want their energy.’

Dean speaks into the mic. ‘We’ve been waiting all our lives to –’ a spike of feedback ‘– to say, “ Good evening, New York – we are Utopia Avenue! ”’ The crowd clap at middling intensity. Griff plays a drum-roll, Elf plays a line of ‘Bronx is up and the Battery’s down’, and Jasper could be waiting for a bus. Dean and Elf exchange a worried glance. ‘With no further ado,’ says Dean, ‘here’s our single, “Roll Away The Stone”. And a- one , and a- two , and a-one two three—’ Jasper comes in on the four and plays his guitar part as per the album. Griff and Dean are as tight as ever, Elf plays with as much verve as she can muster, but Jasper’s a lifeless imitation of Jasper de Zoet. They get through the song, but Elf senses the audience is dubious about this alleged peer of Clapton and Hendrix. The same thing happens with ‘Mona Lisa Sings The Blues’. Griff and Dean support Elf’s performance as best they can, but Jasper’s playing is sluggish and sclerotic. He’s making no connection with the crowd. Many onlookers stand with folded arms. He’s not looking at the band, either, so Elf, Griff and Dean have to fit around his stinting guitar part. Next up is ‘Darkroom’. He steps up to the mic. Someone calls, ‘Say a few words, Jasper.’ He says nothing, and merely counts the band in. If that wasn’t a deliberate Fuck You it definitely came over as one. Jasper doesn’t drop notes or forget lyrics, but he plays without the joy or musical acrobatics that make Utopia Avenue’s shows a hot ticket. The applause for ‘Darkroom’ is perfunctory. He’s behaving as if the Ghepardo is beneath him. ‘The Hook’ and ‘Prove It’ follow. Both are, in Griff’s phrase, three-legged greyhounds. The reviews will range from mixed to submersion in a cesspit. Elf senses the crowd’s confusion: why are three-quarters of Utopia Avenue playing their asses off, but the guitarist is only going through the motions? Dean’s pissed off. Griff looks grim. Elf’s sweating buckets. After a lacklustre ‘Prove It’ she glances into the wings and sees Luisa. She looks concerned. Jasper names the next song on the set-list – ‘Sound Mind’ – and pain distorts his face. He hunches up and shudders for a second or two. When he straightens up, he looks surprised, and Elf dares to hope the real Jasper is back and that pallid impostor is gone. Jasper looks out at the Ghepardo. Tinkerbells from the glitterballs dance across his face. ‘Thanks for coming out tonight, everyone.’

Someone calls out, ‘More than you ’ve fuckin’ done, pal!’

Jasper turns to Dean: ‘Thanks.’ To Griff: ‘Nice work.’ To Elf: ‘Goodbye.’ Elf doesn’t understand why he’s saying this. We’re not at the halfway point yet. Dean sends Elf a What’s-going-on? look. Elf replies with a Search-me look, but at least Jasper appears to be present again. He strums; asks the tech-guy for more volume on his guitar; shuts his eyes … and slams into an amp-blowing, bent-string howl; and fires off a scale of triads, sliding from high E, all the way down. Was he playing some weird mind game with us all? Jasper rewards his first cheer of the night with a new riff that isn’t ‘Sound Mind’ but gets the audience thunder-clapping in time. Griff punctuates the melody; Dean enters the fray with a three-note underlay. Elf launches slabs of Hammond chords. This could be us jamming for fun at Pavel Z’s on a Soho morning. Jasper drives the improvisation over three laps of rocky blues before blasting it to pieces with a jangled, hammered, sustained B flat, the opening of ‘Sound Mind’. Dean gets the message and plays the song’s bass riff; Elf comes in on the next bar; and Griff chop-slaps on the next. Jasper leans in close to the mic to do the first verse in his psycho-whisper …

… Jasper sets off firework after firework through ‘Sound Mind’s nine verses. The Ghepardo is a beast transformed. At the third chorus the band drop away to let five hundred New Yorkers bellow out the final line. Jasper’s eyes are half closed. He gallops into a rapid-fire outro. Elf summons a crescendo of bathybic, many-fingered runs; and Dean’s hanging on for dear life, his faster-than-the-eye fingers skimming around his fretboard. Jasper takes measured steps towards the Marshall stack, flirting with frequencies until – a yoooooooooooowl! of feed-back thrashes and tears the air; a glance at Griff reveals an eight-armed Oriental deity; and Elf is laughing, drunk on relief that Jasper’s back, stoned on the dope of art. Jasper’s cheeks are wet. I didn’t know he had tear glands. The studio ‘Sound Mind’ is long gone. Elf hammers along to Dean’s riff with both hands, cross-hands, slam-hands. Jasper walks into the centre of the stage and looks past Elf; his eyes track someone walking towards him, but Elf sees nobody.Jasper nods at the presence, and his eyeballs roll back in their sockets …