Дэвид Митчелл - Utopia Avenue

Elf ends ‘Moon River’ with a spangly glissando.

The small audience pays her in warm applause.

Wayne smashes a car into a truck and says, ‘Ka booom !’

‘Oh,’ says Nan Moss, ‘that was lovely, weren’t it, Bill?’

‘Bloomin’ lovely. How long’ve yer been playing, Elf?’

‘Since I was five. My grandmother taught me.’

‘Start ’em young,’ says Nan Moss. ‘“Moon River” was our Vi’s favourite. Dean’s mum. She and Marge and Dot all played piano, but it was Vi who took to it.’

‘If you shut your eyes just now,’ says Aunt Marge, ‘it might’ve been Vi playing. That fiddly bit in the middle, specially.’

‘In another life,’ says Aunt Dot, could’ve been something, I reckon. Musically, I mean.’

‘Dean inherited her gift all right,’ says Aunt Marge.

‘Mustn’t let this steak-and-kidney pud get cold, eh?’ says Bill. Aunts Dot and Marge set about dishing up the food.

‘Can the audience hear a piano,’ Ray asks Elf, ‘with thousands o’ girls screaming and throwing their knickers at God’s Gift there?’ He nods at Dean.

‘The knicker-throwing hasn’t started yet,’ says Elf. ‘Once he’s been on Top of the Pops , maybe. Acoustics depend on the venue, mics, amps. We have a Farfisa keyboard in the van. I have a Hammond as well, but it weighs a ton. They both pack quite a wallop.’

‘Don’t it take a lot o’ nerve’ – Shirl’s putting on Wayne’s bib – ‘getting up onstage in front of a crowd of strangers?’

‘I suppose,’ says Elf. ‘But either you get used to stage fright, or you stop. Nan, that’s oodles.’

‘An army marches on its stomach,’ says the matriarch. ‘Right. If we’re all served …’ Everyone clasped their hands. Nan says grace: ‘For what we are about to receive, may the Lord make us truly grateful. Amen.’ Everyone joins in the ‘Amen’ and eats. Dean thinks how food, like music, brings people together.

‘This pie is perfection,’ states Jasper, as if assessing a solo.

‘Serves up a juicy compliment, this one,’ says Aunt Marge.

‘Actually,’ states Dean. ‘He doesn’t. He says it as he sees it.’

‘My nose is a mouth.’ Wayne shoves a carrot up a nostril.

‘Wayne, that’s revolting,’ says Shirl. ‘Take it out.’

‘But yer said I can’t pick my nose at the table.’

‘Ray, tell him.’

‘Do as yer mother says.’ Ray manages not to laugh.

Wayne sticks his little finger up his nostril. ‘It’s up further.’ Now it’s less funny. ‘It’s stuck!’ He sneezes the carrot out at high velocity onto Dean’s plate. Even Shirl sees the funny side.

‘So, who’ll dish the dirt on the teenage Dean?’ asks Elf.

‘Oh, Lordy,’ says Bill. ‘How many hours do we have?’

‘Yer’d need days,’ says Ray, ‘just to scrape the surface.’

‘Lies, lies, lies,’ says Dean. ‘More lies.’

‘Ah, but who’s the rock ’n’ roll rebel now, eh?’ Ray forks a lump of kidney. ‘And who’s the responsible husband?’

Only ’cause yer shot yer tapioca up Shirl’s muff when her eggs were ripe. Dean picks up Wayne’s spoon from the floor.

‘It wasn’t easy for Dean,’ says Nan Moss, ‘after his mum passed away. Wasn’t easy for anyone. His father had a …’

‘A bit of a rough patch,’ offers Bill, catching Dean’s eye.

‘Exactly.’ Nan continues: ‘Ray left to do his apprenticeship at Dagenham, and Dean moved back in with his dad, at the old house on Peacock Street, but that didn’t work out. So Dean moved in with me and Bill here, for three years or so, while he was at Ebbsfleet College of Art. We were that proud.’

‘But instead o’ becoming the next Picasso,’ says Ray, ‘he turned into the guitar genius we know ’n’ love.’

‘ He ’s the guitar genius.’ Dean jerks his thumb at Jasper. ‘Yer were there at the Marquee, Ray.’

‘If I can play,’ says Jasper, ‘it’s because I practised in lieu of living. It’s not a method I recommend.’

‘To achieve anything in this world,’ says Bill, ‘yer’ve got to put the work in. Talent’s not enough. Yer need discipline too.’

‘Dean did some smashing art,’ says Aunt Marge. ‘That’s his, above the radio.’ Everyone looks at Dean’s print of the jetty at Whitstable. ‘His heart was always in the music, mind. He’d be up in his room, doing his tunes until he got them note-perfect.’

‘Like now.’ Jasper spears a runner bean. ‘Lesser bassists go oompa-oompa , like a tuba player. Dean does these fluid runs –’ he puts down his fork to mime it ‘– bam-bam-bi-dambi-dambi, bam-bam-bi-dambi-dam . He plays bass like a rhythm guitar. It’s great.’ Jasper eats the bean.

Dean’s a little embarrassed by this factual praise.

‘See that shield?’ Nan points to a trophy and recites the inscription: ‘“Best Band, Gravesend 1964 – The Gravediggers”. That was Dean’s group. We’ll dig out the photo albums later.’

‘Ooo, the photo albums.’ Elf rubs her hands.

A motorbike thunders by, rattling teacups on the dresser. ‘That’s that Jack Costello,’ grumbles Aunt Marge. ‘Puts his boy Vinny in the sidecar, treats the town like his private racetrack.’

‘Yer won’t mind my asking, Jasper,’ says Aunt Marge, ‘but are yer posh? Yer dead well-spoken. Like a BBC announcer.’

‘I was raised by my aunt in Lyme Regis until I was six. She kept a boarding house and money was always tight. But then I went to a boarding school in Ely, which is very posh indeed. Unfortunately, a toff’s accent is no guarantee of a toff’s bank balance.’

‘How could yer aunt afford a posh school?’ asks Bill.

‘My father’s family – the de Zoets – stepped in. They’re Dutch.’

Aunt Marge adjusts her dentures. ‘And they’re wealthy, are they, Jasper, if yer don’t mind my asking?’

‘Can we spare the poor lad the third degree?’ asks Dean.

‘Oh, he doesn’t mind, do yer, Jasper?’ says Aunt Marge.

Jasper appears not to. ‘I’d describe the de Zoets of Zeeland as rich, rather than wealthy.’

‘Aren’t rich and wealthy the same thing?’ asks Shirl.

‘The rich know how much money they have. The wealthy have so much, they’re never wholly sure.’

‘Where was yer mother in all of this?’ asks Aunt Marge.

‘My mother died when I was born.’

The women tut sympathetically. ‘Poor love,’ says Aunt Marge. ‘At least Ray and Dean knew their mum. Having no memories of her at all, that must be tough. Yer should’ve warned us, Dean.’

‘I warned yer not to give him the third degree.’

Nan’s cuckoo clock cuckoos seven times.

‘It can’t be seven o’clock already,’ says Elf.

‘Funny stuff, is time,’ observes Aunt Dot.

Dean was fifteen. Cancer and morphine had half erased his mother. He dreaded the visits to her ward and he knew that dreading them made him the worst son in England. Death turned every other topic into a futile evasion, yet how can people who aren’t dying discuss death with people who are? It was a Sunday morning. Ray was in Dagenham. Dean’s dad was doing overtime at the cement depot. Nan Moss and the aunts were at church. Dean never saw the point of church. ‘God works in mysterious ways’ seemed no different from ‘Heads I win, tails you lose’. If prayer worked, Dean’s mum wouldn’t be dying. Dean had come to the hospital with his Futurama. His mother was asleep when he arrived, so Dean practised quietly. He worked through a tricky picked arrangement of ‘The Tennessee Waltz’. When he got to the end, a fragile voice said, ‘That’s nice, love.’

Dean looked up. ‘I’ve been practising.’