Дэвид Митчелл - Utopia Avenue

‘I really have to be off.’ Bea stands up and puts on her coat. ‘You go and record a masterpiece. Shall I tell Immy?’

‘Please.’ It’s the path of least resistance. ‘And Mum.’

‘I’ll drop by your flat after the audition. If you want.’

‘Sure.’ Elf looks at the clock: 8.58. ‘Bea, tell me something. I’ve been to university. I’ve dropped out of university. I’ve survived the music scene for three years. You’re still at school. How come you know so much while I know bugger-all? How does that work?’

‘Basically,’ Bea hugs her sister goodbye, ‘I don’t believe people.’ She lets her sister go. ‘Basically, you do.’

Wedding Presence

At the end of its eight-minute journey from the sun, light passes through the stained glass of St Matthias Church in Richmond, London, and enters the dual darkrooms of Jasper’s eyeballs. The rods and cones packing his retinas convert the light into electrical impulses that travel along optic nerves into his brain, which translates the varying wavelengths of light into ‘Virgin Mary blue’, ‘blood of Christ red’, ‘Gethsemane green’, and interprets the images as twelve disciples, each occupying a segment of the cartwheel window. Vision begins in the heart of the sun. Jasper notes that Jesus’s disciples were, essentially, hippies: long hair, gowns, stoner expressions, irregular employment, spiritual convictions, dubious sleeping arrangements and a guru. The cartwheel begins to spin, so Jasper shuts his eyes and fights the slippage by naming the twelve, rummaging through boyhood scripture classes and church services: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, a.k.a. the Fab Four; Thomas, Jasper’s favourite, the one who demanded proof; Peter, who enjoyed the best solo career; Jude and Matthias, session players; and Judas Iscariot. Our Heavenly Father’s most sadistically deployed patsy. Before Jasper can finish off the list, however, he hears a knock. Rhythmic, faint, a sonic room or two below the vicar’s voice. Unmistakable.

Knock-knock, knock-knock, knock-knock .

He opens his eyes. The window has stopped spinning.

The knocking stops, too. But I heard it. He’s awake.

Jasper was told this day would come. The agony of uncertainty is over, at least. I was only ever on remission. He glances at Griff, to his right, decked out in an improvised wedding suit. His hands are drumming, softly, on his thighs. To his left, Dean’s trying to make one index finger turn clockwise and the other anticlockwise. I like playing with these guys and I don’t want it to end.

Perhaps Queludrin could slow the onset.

Perhaps .

Jasper was fifteen. Cherry trees around the cricket field blossomed wedding-dress white. Jasper lacked the body mass for rugby and the stamina for rowing, but he had the coordination, speed and patience for the First XI cricket team. Jasper was fielding in the outfield as Bishop’s Ely took on Peterborough Grammar. The grass was fresh-cut and the sun was raw. Ely Cathedral sat above the River Ouse like Noah’s Ark. The captain, a boy named Whitehead, ran up to the wicket and delivered a yorker. The batsman smacked the ball in Jasper’s direction. Shouts rang out. Jasper was already running to intercept the ball and scooped it up in mid-stride only a few feet shy of the boundary rope, preventing a four. His throw to Whitehead was accurate and earned a few seconds’ worth of applause from the home supporters. Behind, or inside, or over the clapping, for the very first time Jasper heard the knock-knock , knock-knock , knock-knock that would change, redefine, and nearly end his life. It was like knuckles on a far-off door, down a corridor … Or a little hammer on the far side of a wall. Jasper looked around for its source. The spectators were all on the far side of the pitch. The nearest boy was a classmate, Bundy, about forty paces away. Jasper called out: ‘Bundy?’

Bundy’s voice was nasal with hay fever. ‘What?’

‘Do you hear that?’

‘Hear what?’

‘That knocking sound.’

They listened to a Cambridgeshire morning’s unscored music: a tractor in a nearby field; cars; crows. The cathedral bells began their count to twelve. Underneath, a Knock-knock … Knock-knock … Knock-knock …

‘What knocking sound?’ asked Bundy.

‘That knock-knock … knock-knock …’

Bundy listened again. ‘If you lose your marbles and the men in white coats come to take you away, can I have your cricket bat?’

A fighter jet unzipped the horizon. Over the boundary rope, a chalk blue butterfly grazed on the Queen Anne’s lace. Jasper felt what you feel after someone leaves the room.

Whitehead was beginning his long run-up. The knocking had stopped. Or gone. Or maybe Jasper’s hearing was especially acute and he had heard someone chopping wood. Or maybe he had only imagined it. Whitehead bowled. The wicket leaped from the ground. ‘ Hoooowwww-zzzzzzaaaaaaaaattt! ’

‘Gifts can be treasured for a lifetime or forgotten the next moment.’ The vicar of St Matthias Church sounds, to Jasper, a lot like Prime Minister Harold Wilson. His voice is flat and buzzing, like a bee trapped in a tin. ‘Gifts can be sincere, or manipulative. Gifts may be material. Gifts may be invisible – a favour, a kind word, the end of a sulk. A sparrow on your bird-table. A song on the radio. A second chance. Impartial advice. Acceptance. The gift of gratitude, which allows us to recognise gifts as gifts. Life is a continuum of giving and receiving. Air, sunlight, sleep, food, water, love. For Christians, the Bible is the gift of God’s word, and buried within that vast gift, we find these treasured lines about gifts, given by Paul to a struggling church in Corinth. “ When I was a child , I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then we’ll see God face to face. Now I know in part; but then shall I know even as I am known. And now abideth faith, hope and love, these three; but the greatest of these is love .”’

Jasper, his ear pressed against a stone pillar, hears a heart.

The vicar continues: ‘“ The greatest of these is love. ” When faith turns its back on you, the Apostle advises, just try to love. When hope is snuffed out, just try to love. I say to Lawrence and Imogen that on the days when marriage does not resemble a rose garden – and they, too, happen – just try to love. Just try. True love is the act of trying to love. Effortless love is as dubious as effortless gardening …’

Jasper looks at the flowers around the altar. So this is a wedding. He’s never been to one before. He thinks of his mother, and wonders if she ever dreamed of having a wedding like this. Or if, when she discovered she was pregnant, that dream withered away. If you believe stories, romantic comedies and magazines, a wedding day is the happiest day of a woman’s life. A Mount Everest of joy. Everyone at St Matthias Church looks quite serious. In a church, in West London, on a ball of rock, hurtling through space at 67,000 miles per hour …

‘Aha, the mysterious missing diner.’ The man in the banquet hall at Epsom Country Club is too big for his chair. ‘Don Glossop, Dunlop Tyres, an old pal of Lawrence’s father.’ His handshake is a hand-clamp.

‘Hello, Mr Glossop. I remember you.’

‘Oh?’ Don Glossop juts out his lower jaw. ‘From where?’

‘I saw you in the church.’

‘Glad we got that cleared up.’ Don Glossop releases Jasper’s hand. ‘This is Brenda, my better half. I’m told. By her.’

Brenda Glossop has sculpted hair, prominent jewellery and a sinister way of saying, ‘Enchanted’.