Дэвид Митчелл - Utopia Avenue

Levon does not look surprised. The Dark Arts , thinks Dean. Griff looks delighted. ‘Small world, eh?’

‘It is. Hello, Mr de Zoet.’

The ex-lovers stare at each other for a few seconds.

‘You look a little bit older,’ says Jasper. ‘Around the eyes.’

‘Oh, dear God, Jasper,’ groans Elf. ‘I despair of you …’

Mecca’s laughing. ‘Your Troubadour show last night was very great. I thought the first album was out of this world, but Stuff of Life blows my mind.’

‘Hang on,’ says Elf. ‘You were at the Troubadour?’

‘I bought a ticket when I hear you play there.’

‘Why didn’t yer bloody tell us?’ asks Dean.

‘I did not want to be the girl who says, “Hey, I used to date the guitar god, so give me special treatment.” Also …’

‘Oh, Jasper’s single,’ says Dean. ‘Since you left, none o’ the baby-sitters’ve lasted more than a week or two.’

‘Are you free this evening?’ asks Jasper. ‘Come to the show.’

‘There’s a party at Cass Elliot’s house after,’ says Levon.

Mecca sighs and looks uncertain. ‘Unfortunately, Friday night is my Black Forest Gateau and Lederhosen Club Night. So sad …’

Jasper needs a few seconds. ‘Irony.’ Then he’s not so sure. ‘Or a lie? No. A joke. Dean? Was it a joke?’

Max Mulholland sails in. ‘Doug Weston says every last ticket sold within a quarter-hour of Elf whacking Randy Thorn on his head. There’s a line outside already. We’d best hurry …’

The queue is still there an hour later. The band, Levon and Mecca watch from across Santa Monica Boulevard. Under a roof of dark glare, warm lights illuminate the club’s frontage and a sign in a Gothic font: ‘Doug Weston’s Troubadour’. Lower down, in block letters: ‘UTOPIA AVENUE’. Mecca’s holding Jasper’s hand, Dean notices. Looks like they’re picking up where they left off … No ‘Who have you slept with?’ No fuss. No love-child. No paternity lawsuit. A gun-metal grey Ford Zodiac cruises by. Next, an eye-blue Corvette Sting Ray. Then a ruby-red Pontiac GTO.

‘Night four,’ says Griff. ‘Anybody getting used to it yet?’

‘Not me,’ says Elf. ‘Not yet.’

‘I was shitting myself the first night,’ says Dean. ‘But now I’m like, Ah, we knocked it for six before, we will again. ’

‘Tuesday to Thursday,’ says Levon, ‘you were building buzz. Tonight’s the pay-off. A good run at the Troubadour unlocks Los Angeles. Los Angeles unlocks California. And California’s the key to America. Not New York. Here. Things are falling into place.’

Dean smells car fumes and his own aftershave. ‘Bet it’s raining in England, now. Here we are in short sleeves. They’ll never know. Our families, I mean. We can describe it, but unless they’ve been here, unless they’ve lived it …’

‘I’ve had that thought too,’ says Elf. ‘It’s melancholic.’

‘Turn around, everyone,’ instructs Mecca.

They obey – Click ’n’ FLASH! Scrit-scrit …

‘Yer don’t tend to ask, do yer?’ remarks Dean.

‘No, she does not,’ says Jasper.

‘Either you ask politely,’ replies Mecca, ‘or you get good photographs.’ Click ’n’ FLASH! Scrit-scrit …

‘Let’s go tell Doug we’re here,’ says Levon.

Doug Weston’s upstairs office vibrates in time to the support act’s bass. 101 Damn Nations, a local band, are good enough to ‘warm the seat’ but not so good as to threaten Utopia Avenue. Doug Weston, a giant in green velvet with anarchic blond hair, is the most affable club owner Dean has ever met, and when the rest of the band go downstairs, he stays to chat a while longer. Doug discusses the Randy Thorn episode and takes out a Sucrets throat-lozenge tin. ‘It was the most compelling live TV since … well, I’d propose Lee Harvey Oswald’s assassination, but that would be tasteless. People were phoning in on KDAY-FM, KCRW. They’ve been playing “Roll Away The Stone”. You’re the conversation in LA today. If Levon wasn’t so Canadian, I’d be thinking, Shit, did he set the whole thing up? ’

‘That’s Randy Thorn’s theory, I’m told,’ says Dean. ‘’Cept in his version, I set the whole thing up.’

‘Randy Thorn’s days of being taken seriously by anyone except his mother and his dog are over.’ Doug clears space on his desk, pushing aside bills, papers, letters, acetates, ashtrays, shot-glasses, a Pirelli calendar and a framed photograph of Doug and Jimi Hendrix. Doug opens the small tin and takes out a loaded spatula’s worth of cocaine, deposits it on the cover of Newsweek , and makes a white line running between Hubert Humphrey and Richard Nixon. He hands Dean a rolled-up dollar bill and tells him, ‘Rocket fuel.’

Dean snorts the cocaine up his nostril and flips his head back. It burns, freezes and exhilarates. Ten espressos at once. ‘Lift-off.’

‘Ain’t that just the smoothest shit?’

‘The stuff at home just butchers my nose.’

‘Keith Richards preaches two cardinal rules: know your dealer and buy the best. If you don’t, your shit’ll be cut with corn starch, baby milk or worse.’

Dean glows. ‘What’s worse than corn starch?’

‘Rat poison’s worse than corn starch.’

‘Why would a dealer poison his customers?’

‘Profit. Indifference. Homicidal urges.’ Doug tips out a second heaped spatula onto Newsweek . ‘I’ve twice your body mass,’ he explains. He snorts – ‘ Aaahhhhhh … ’ – and smiles like an ugly horse attaining Nirvana.

I wrote a few songs , thinks Dean, they got recorded and look at me now. I’ve bloody won, Gravesend. See? I won …

Doug Weston locks his cocaine stash away. ‘Let’s get you back now. Mustn’t let Levon think I’m leading you down the starry path of rock ’n’ roll depravity …’

The band, Levon and Mecca wait on the stairs leading down to the stage. The Troubadour is packed, twice over. The smoke is thick. Dean’s coming down from his cocaine bump but still feeling semi-indestructible. ‘Here at the Troubadour,’ says Doug Weston onstage, ‘we’ve always taken pride in introducing the hottest talent from England to our City of the Fallen Angels. Utopia Avenue is playing their last night of an un-for -gettable stay here. Randy Thorn sure as hell ain’t going to forget any time soon, anyhow.’ Laughter and cheers surge up the stairs. Dean squeezes Elf’s hand and Elf squeezes his back. ‘But I know the band’ll be playing again at the Troubadour very soon because—’

‘You made ’em sign a blood oath to come back and do shows for the next twenty years?’ calls a heckler.

Doug presses his hand to his wounded heart. ‘Because they have a cosmic future. So with no further ado …’ he turns to face the band at the top of the stairs ‘… Utopia Avenue!’

The applause has grown from a low boil on Tuesday to a roar spiked with catcalls tonight. Dean and Doug pat shoulders as they pass and Doug speaks in his ear: ‘Slay ’em.’ The band take their positions. Dean looks into the dim, brick-walled venue, full of glinting eyes, and thinks, They’re here to see yer ’cause yer the best thing on in LA tonight. He gets a nod back from Elf, Griff and Jasper, comes in close to his mic and fills his lungs:

I-i-i-i-i-f life has shot yer full of holes –

His voice detonates – it is scorched and tortured, like Eric Burdon’s on ‘House of the Rising Sun’ …

a-a-a-a-nd hung yer out to dry …

A figure on the side catches his eye: Dean’s pretty sure it’s David Crosby, late of the Byrds – that hat, that cape – breathe … Dean reaches for the next line … which is … which was … Gone.