Дэвид Митчелл - Utopia Avenue

Elf wished she had the nerve to say, ‘In that case, I’ll avoid it like the plague.’ She said, ‘Good luck with the songs.’

He kissed his forefinger and planted it between Elf’s eyebrows. ‘I’ll tell Toby Green you sent me.’

Elf forced a smile but wanted to wash her face. ‘Bruce is around. He’ll want to speak with you, too …’

Bruce was nowhere. The bodies grew denser. The air grew smokier. The Butterfield Blues band was on. Half an hour passed. Elf fended off a folk-bore, who took her to task for sullying the purity of the 1765 version of ‘Sir Patrick Spens’ on her ‘Oak, Ash And Thorn’ EP. Bruce reappeared. ‘Wombat, let me take you away from all this.’

‘Where were you? I just got cornered by—’

‘The real party’s up in Wotsit’s room. C’mon.’ Bruce spoke low. ‘Everyone’s waiting.’

‘Look, I’m not sure if I’m really in the mood for—’

‘Trust me.’ Bruce gave her a conspiratorial wink. ‘The next few hours could change your life.’ He led her through bodies, up steps, up steeper steps, past snoggers and up even steeper steps to a purple door. He knocked a pattern of knocks. A bolt was unbolted.

‘Aha.’ The door was opened by Wotsit. ‘Sorry for the cloak and dagger –’ he re-bolted the door behind them ‘– but if word got out, the hoi-polloi would be kicking my door down.’ Wotsit’s room was lit by a paper lamp on a tripod. Its beam revolved like a lighthouse’s, traversing yellow walls, floorboards painted purple and yellow, and a boarded-up fireplace. Black tulips stood in a black vase. The window showed a South Kensington nocturne of chimney pots, TV aerials and gutters. Six people sat or lay on beanbags, a low bed and cushions. Vanessa from earlier said, ‘We thought we’d lost you. Do you know Syd?’ Syd Barrett, the singer with Pink Floyd, was strumming a guitar and singing, ‘ Have you got it yet ?’ over and over. He didn’t appear to notice Elf. A man with an imperial beard, a rose-print shirt and a shiny pate, introduced himself. ‘Al Ginsberg. Great to meet you, Elf. Bill Graham’s gonna love this.’ He held up Fletcher & Holloway’s ‘Shepherd’s Crook’ EP.

‘Allen Ginsberg the poet?’ Elf checked with Bruce. ‘ The Allen Ginsberg?’ Bruce had a what-did-I-tell-you face.

‘Don’t believe everything you read about me,’ said Allen Ginsberg. ‘Just most of it. My friend Bill just happens to own the Fillmore Auditorium. You’ve heard of the Fillmore, right?’

‘Of course. It’s the venue in San Francisco, bar none.’

‘You’d fit right in there,’ says Ginsberg. ‘You’re folkier than a lot of the acts, but you’re not just folkie.’

‘We’d be over like a shot,’ said Bruce, ‘if Mr Graham could sort the flights for us. Right, Elf?’

Elf was too stunned to do much but nod. ‘Definitely.’

‘I’m Aphra Booth.’ The woman in a denim suit was sitting against the far wall. ‘This reprobate –’ she indicated the guy with a cloudy Afro who lay with his head in her lap and who raised a lazy hand ‘– is Mick Farren.’ Aphra Booth was another Australian. ‘I’m sceptical on the whole Doors of Perception thing, but in the spirit of scientific enquiry, I’d like to experience what I’m sceptical about.’

This didn’t make much sense to Elf, but Aphra Booth’s demeanour prompted her to say, ‘Absolutely.’

Syd Barrett detuned his guitar, still chanting ‘ Have you got it yet? ’ in a quiet, demonic round.

‘So, Elf.’ Wotsit indicated a shelf of drinks. ‘What’s your rocket fuel? Brandy? A sugar cube?’

‘Sorry to be square, but just a Coke, please.’

‘If you were square,’ said Wotsit, ‘you wouldn’t be here.’

‘Bags Elf sits next to me.’ Vanessa patted a beanbag next to her. ‘Even if her talent makes me green with envy. Piano and guitar, you play? Isn’t that just showing off?’

Elf sank into the beanbag, wondering if Vanessa was there with Syd or Allen Ginsberg. She was way above Wotsit’s class. ‘I’m not that great on the guitar. Bruce calls me “The Claw”.’

‘Then I think Bruce is perfectly horrid.’

Wotsit brought her Coke. ‘Enjoy the trip.’

Elf guessed the phrase was an Australianism. ‘Thanks.’ She swigged a mouthful of dark sweetness.

‘ You’re clearly not a virgin,’ observed Aphra Booth.

Elf guessed this was feminist forthrightness. ‘Um … Neither are you, I guess.’

Aphra looked confused. ‘Didn’t you hear me earlier?’

‘So, Elf.’ Bruce was doing his naughty-boy smile. ‘Me and Wotsit have given you an early birthday present.’

‘Oh?’ Elf looked around. There was no sign of a gift.

‘We all dropped acid ten minutes ago,’ said her boyfriend, ‘but it wouldn’t be the same without you, so …’

Elf followed his gaze to her Coke, but dismissed the idea that Bruce would spike her drink with LSD as preposterous – until Wotsit giggled, snaggle-toothed.

‘Sometimes you need a little push, Wombat,’ said Bruce.

Horrified, Elf put the bottle down. Shock trumped anger but anxiety trumped shock: Elf didn’t want to start tripping in front of these strangers. She didn’t want to start tripping at all. Bruce and a few of the Cousins crowd had dropped acid, but Elf was not attracted by the stories of archangels, or fingers turning into penises, or the death of the ego.

‘Am I reading this right?’ Aphra asked Bruce. ‘You put LSD in your girlfriend’s drink without telling her?’

‘Just relax into it,’ Bruce told Elf.

Elf stopped herself yelling, ‘ You stupid moron, how dare you? ’ Allen Ginsberg was looking on, and to fail this acid test might be to kiss a gig goodbye at the mythical Fillmore. She looked at her bottle of Coke. She had only drunk about a quarter.

Bruce pouted on his beanbag. ‘It’s your birthday present. You’re not this square.’ He told Allen Ginsberg, ‘She’s not.’

‘ Have you got it yet? ’ sang Syd Barrett. ‘ Have you got it yet? ’

‘No truly independent mind,’ said Allen Ginsberg, ‘is square. And if Elf isn’t in the mood, a bad trip is far likelier.’

Elf handed the Coke to Wotsit. ‘I’ll hear about your adventures in the morning.’ Bruce looked sulky. Elf asked Aphra Booth. ‘Look after him, will you?’

‘Certainly not. Do I look like his mother?’

On Cromwell Road, night had drawn a curtain of drizzle. A 97 bus groaned up to Elf’s stop. Downstairs was packed, so she went upstairs, and took the last free double seat near the front. She leaned her head against the glass and replayed the scene in Wotsit’s room from various angles. Had she just turned down a lysergic acid golden ticket to San Francisco? Had she flunked a rite of passage? Was she a prisoner too afraid to escape from mind-prison? The bus stopped at the Natural History Museum. A tired-looking Caribbean woman appeared at the top of the stairs, making the quick-fire calculations women have to make when choosing a seat: Where am I least likely to get hassled? It must be doubly tricky if you’re black and female, Elf figured, so she made a sisterly feel-free-to-sit-here nod at the seat next to her. The woman took the seat with a silent nod back. Within a minute she had fallen asleep. Elf studied her, sideways. She was Elf’s age, give or take, with smoother skin, fuller lips and thicker, curlier hair escaping from a headscarf. A silver cross rested on her clavicle behind the collar of a nurse’s uniform …

‘ Elf Holloway is a dyke ,’ stated Imogen.

Elf sat very still. Imogen was in Malvern, a hundred and forty miles away, and not riding on the 97 bus in South Kensington.