Дэвид Митчелл - Utopia Avenue

A lunchtime lollipop lady took up position on the pelican crossing and directed a crocodile of infants across the road.

The nib of Dean’s pen scratched his notebook.

Elf asked, ‘Still doing those lyrics?’

‘When you’re not asking me stuff.’

‘Can I take a look? I’m booo ooo ooo ooored …’

Dean surrendered and handed her the notebook.

Fireworks split the sky at night

A hundred rockets screamed and fell.

You swung the axe with all your might

At my guitar and gave it hell.

My record player was next to catch

it. Little Richard had to pay.

You poured on paraffin, one match

lit – awop-bop-a-loola-awop-bam-bay.

Elf smiled at that and Dean asked, ‘What? What?’

‘Good line. “ Awop-bop-a-loola ”.’

Dean looked relieved. ‘What d’yer think ’bout—’

‘Ssh. Let me finish.’

Hope that bonfire in the garden

Still burns purple in your eyes,

Still turns my future into carbon,

Still smoulders, your November prize.

‘Don’t dream bigger than I do.

You are what I say you are.

You’ll do what I tell you to.’ Go

Tell your friend, the morning star.

‘An X-ray of the soul,’ said Elf. ‘Is it about your dad?’

‘Uh, not exactl— uh … kind o’ … Yeah.’

‘Do you have a title yet?’

‘I was thinking about “Still Burning”.’

Not great , thought Elf, scanning the lines.

‘Don’t yer like it? Have yer got a better one?’

Elf scanned the lines. ‘What about “Purple Flames”?’

Dean thought. An articulated lorry rumbled by. ‘Maybe.’

‘You’ve deployed trochaic tetrameter, I see.’

‘I’ve got some ointment for that, but you can’t have sex for a week after the symptoms have cleared up.’

Elf tapped the page. ‘ Dum -dah dum -dah dum -dah dum -dah. “ Hope that bon fire in the gar den”. A “ dum -dah” is a trochee. The word “ tro chee” is also a trochee, which proves Greeks were show-offs. The word iamb – a “dah- dum ” – is also an iamb. Your lines are four trochees long – fiddly bits aside – so it’s a trochaic tetrameter.’

‘So that’s what yer learn in posh schools.’ Dean put a fruit pastille in his mouth and offered her the tube.

Elf took one. Lemon. ‘At the poshest posh schools – like Jasper’s – you study metre in Latin and Greek. Not just English.’

‘At the shittest shit schools – like mine – yer study smoking, skiving, dodging shit and petty theft.’

‘Crucial skills for the Great British workplace.’ Elf reread the lyrics. Lemony saliva floods her mouth. ‘No chorus, no bridge?’

‘Not sure if it needs one. If an X-ray of the soul has a catchy chorus, is it still an X-ray of the soul?’

‘“ Tell your friend, the morning star .” It’s lonely.’

‘Morning Star vodka was Harry Moffat’s main food source.’

Dean tended to veer away from discussion of fathers, but Elf sensed that a locked door was ajar. ‘If he ever got in touch – if, say, we end up recording that song … what would you do?’

Dean didn’t reply for a while. ‘I’ve spotted him in Gravesend, now ’n’ then. Sat in a barber’s. At the market. Waiting for a train. But I just blank him out. S’prisingly easy. Since that –’ he nodded at his notebook ‘– Bonfire Night, we never spoke again. Not once.’

‘How about when Ray and Shirl got married?’

‘Ray fixed it so Harry Moffat was at the register office, and I was at the reception. Never the twain. Happy days.’

Elf looked at the lyrics again. ‘These lyrics aren’t an olive branch, but they are a message. “ You exist, and I still think about you. ” If he was totally dead to you, why write it?’

Dean tapped cigarette ash out of the window.

He’s gone moody. ‘Sorry if I overstepped the mark.’

‘No, no. I was just envying how, if yer want to say something, yer just say it. Is that education? Or is it being a girl?’

‘It’s easy being the Enlightened One about other people’s families.’ Elf fanned herself. ‘So why a song about your dad now?’

Dean frowned. ‘Something just says, “My turn”, and it won’t leave yer alone till yer do it. Isn’t that how it is for you?’

I thought I knew Dean pretty well by now, but I was wrong. ‘Ye-es. He must be complex. Harry Moffat, I mean.’

‘“Complex” is one word. If yer just met him one time, yer’d think, Life ’n’ soul o’ the party . If yer knew him better, yer’d think, Nice enough fella, but something’s a bit off. If yer were family, yer’d know why he’s got no friends. He doesn’t drink to get drunk. He drinks to act normal. And his idea o’ normal got really bloody nasty.’

A dustcart drove by. Bare-chested bin-men clung to the side, one with an Action Man’s physique, one with a darts player’s.

Elf asked, ‘Why didn’t your mum leave?’

Dean frowned. ‘Shame. A mother who walks out on her husband’s a failure. That’s what a lot o’ people think. I s’pose she was worried ’bout what’d happen to me ’n’ Ray, too. She was afraid it’d be hand-me-downs ’n’ bread ’n’ marge and never going on holiday. When it comes to divorces, it’s the breadwinner who has the money for a proper lawyer. There’s always a sort o’ twisted hope, too. Hope that last time was the last time. That he’s mellowing out.’

‘That’s twisted logic more than twisted hope,’ said Elf.

‘Agreed.’ Dean dropped his cigarette stub out of the window. ‘The best-selling type.’

‘Your father still lives in the house you grew up in?’

‘Till about a year ago when he was in a car smash. He got away with scratches but the Mini he hit was a write-off. The driver’s in a wheelchair and his ten-year-old daughter lost an eye.’

‘God, Dean,’ said Elf. ‘That’s awful.’

‘Yep. It was an accident waiting to happen, mind. ’Cause he was drunk, the insurance company wouldn’t pay the compo, so he had to sell the house. He’s in a council flat. The cement works’d sacked him. So he had to sign on. Ironic, that. That was why he was so dead set against me being a musician – he was sure I’d just end up on the dole. His drinking buddies stopped standing him rounds. He got barred from pubs. By that point I was thinking, Okay, if it wasn’t Harry Moffat I’d feel a bit o’ pity … But it is Harry Moffat. I just thought, Yer’ve made yer bed, now lie in it. ’

‘Has he tried to get help?’

‘Ray told me he’s going to Alcoholics Anonymous. Who knows how that’ll work out? What’s Harry Moffat without his Morning Star?’

Levon returned, climbed in and wiped his face on a spotted handkerchief. ‘Holy crap. When I was chart-hyping for Buster Godwin, chocolates and flattery got the job done. Now they want your first-born child.’ Levon took an envelope from the glove compartment and put in five one-pound notes. ‘A naked bribe.’

‘Can’t I have that?’ asked Dean. ‘Or can’t we just buy a million copies of our single in shops?’

‘The brutal truth is, the world doesn’t give a shit about “Darkroom” and we have a fortnight to make it care. So, whatever it takes to flog this single, we do. Which means me bribing an asshole in a Slough record shop so he’ll report inflated sales figures. It also means you’ – Levon looked at Elf – ‘coming in with me to schmooze the creep. And you’ – Levon turned to Dean – ‘wooing the shop girls with wilting roses. Ready? Once more unto the breach …’