Дэвид Митчелл - Utopia Avenue

From the wings, Jasper and Griff watch Diana Ross and the Supremes mime ‘Reflections’. Jasper sees the whites of Diana Ross’s eyes. Elf joins him and Griff. Diana Ross, Mary Wilson and Cindy Birdsong make every other act look amateurish. Us included . Their poise, dark skin and silver gowns are perfect for black-and-white screens. Jasper – and most of Great Britain, he guesses – is entranced by their minimal choreography, how they embody the song, serve it, mean it. No other song on the show – ‘Itchycoo Park’, Traffic’s ‘Hole In My Shoe’, the Move’s ‘Flowers In The Rain, and the Flowerpot Men’s ‘Let’s Go To San Francisco’ – struck Jasper as believed in by anyone, from writer to punter.

When ‘Reflections’ ends, Diana Ross responds to the loud applause with a modest wave and a smile before she and the Supremes are ushered past. As she passes Jasper, he inhales a few of the molecules left in her wake.

‘Think we’ll get there some day?’ Elf asks, in a low voice.

‘Where?’ asks Jasper.

‘America.’

Jasper considers the question.

‘If Herman’s fookin’ Hermits can,’ growls Griff, ‘ we will.’

While Engelbert Humperdinck ends the show with ‘The Last Waltz’, the backstage party at the BBC Lime Grove Studios – ‘Slime Grove’ to its friends – kicks off the London scene’s Thursday-to-Sunday weekend. Musicians, managers, groupies, wives, columnists and hangers-on are circulating, plotting, flirting, bitching and backstabbing. Levon, Jasper and Howie Stoker are in the corner with Victor French and Andrew Loog Oldham. Elf and Bruce – his hand on her hip – are with Bea, Jude and Dean in a huddle with half of Traffic.

The reappearance of Elf’s ex-boyfriend, and Elf’s abrupt ejection of Angus, triggered a big argument at Pavel Z’s, when Elf brought Bruce to meet the band. As far as Jasper could tell, Dean was angry with Elf for taking Bruce back because Dean thought Bruce had treated Elf badly in the past, and might treat her badly again. At that point, Bruce left, telling Elf he’d get dinner ready for when she came home. Elf got angry with Dean because she thought her choice of boyfriend was none of Dean’s business, especially when Dean was two-timing Jude with the Patisserie Valerie waitress from Scunthorpe. That made Dean even angrier, which made Elf even more scornful. Griff began a few drumming exercises, which made both Dean and Elf angry with him. Griff played louder. Jasper was by then totally lost. Why, he wondered, do Normals get so worked up about who’s having sex with whom? Surely, people who want to sleep with each other will do so, until one or both no longer want it. Then it ends. Like the end of the mating season in the animal kingdom. If everyone just accepted that, there would be no more heartache.

Maybe, Dean is accepting it now. Griff is on a sofa with giggling girls and a saucer-eyed Keith Moon miming a story involving lots of bouncing. Jasper checks his facts: I’m in a band; we got signed; I wrote a song; it’s at number nineteen; we just mimed it on Top of the Pops . Millions saw it.

Yes, these facts appear to be reliable.

Jasper thinks of ‘Darkroom’ as a cloud of dandelion seeds, floating across the airwaves, taking root in minds from the Shetlands to the Scillies. They fly through time, too. Perhaps ‘Darkroom’ will land in the minds of people not yet born, or whose parents are not yet born. Who knows? Jasper bumps into a helmet of gold hair, a lime shirt and a magenta tie. He apologises to Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones.

Brian Jones says, ‘No bones broken.’ He puts a cigarette into his mouth and asks, ‘Got a light?’

Jasper obliges. ‘Congratulations on “We Love You”.’

‘Oh, you like that one, do you?’

‘It’s a relentless knock-out.’

Brian Jones holds in smoke, then sighs it out. ‘I play Mellotron on it. Mellotrons are bitches. It’s the delay. Ought I to know you?’

‘I’m Jasper. I play guitar in Utopia Avenue.’

‘Nice for a holiday. Wouldn’t want to live there.’

Jasper wonders if that was a joke. ‘Why are you the only Rolling Stone here?’

Brian Jones frowns. ‘Between us … I don’t quite know.’

‘Why not?’

‘Things get lodged in my head, sometimes.’

‘What kind of things?’

‘Well, the notion that we were doing “We Love You” on Top of the Pops tonight. So, I dropped everything and had Tom drive me in … only to find a lot of baffled BBC chaps who assured me that no, in fact the Stones aren’t performing on the show and never were.’

‘So … someone made a hoax call, are you saying?’

‘No. It’s more like a message in my head.’

Jasper thinks of Knock Knock. ‘A message?’

Brian Jones slouches against the wall. ‘Or the memory of a message. But when you try to find out where it came from, there’s nothing. Like … graffiti that vanishes the moment it’s read.’

‘Are you high?’ asks Jasper.

‘I wish.’

‘Are you ever visited by incorporeal beings?’

Brian Jones moved the curtain of gold hair from his bloodshot eyes and looked at Jasper properly. ‘Speak to me.’

During Jasper’s ten years at Bishop’s Ely, he made no enemies worthy of the title and only one friend. Heinz Formaggio was his roommate and the son of Swiss scientists. Three weeks after the first knock-knock on the cricket pitch, when the number of ‘incidents’ had reached double figures, Jasper told his roommate what he was hearing. They were under an oak tree during a free period. Formaggio leaned against the tree while Jasper spoke for half an hour. He didn’t reply for a while. Bees perused the clover. Lines of birdsong got tangled up. A train crossed the fen, heading north.

‘Have you told anyone else?’ Formaggio finally said.

‘It’s not the sort of thing I want to advertise.’

‘Damn right.’

A burly groundsman pushed a lawnmower.

Jasper asked, ‘Do you have any theories?’

Formaggio knitted his fingers. ‘I have four. Theory A posits that the knock-knock s are a fabrication to seek attention.’

‘They’re not.’

‘You are morbidly honest, de Zoet. Theory A is dismissed.’

‘Good.’

‘Theory B posits that the sound is made by a supernatural entity. We might christen him, her, or it “Knock Knock”.’

‘It’s a he. “Supernatural entity” isn’t very scientific.’

‘Ghosts, demons, angels are anti -scientific and yet, in a straw poll, I’d wager more people believe in these things than believe in the General Theory of Relativity. Why “he”?’

‘I don’t know how I know. He’s a he. I’m no fan of Theory B. Being a majority is no guarantee of being right.’

Formaggio nodded. ‘Also, ghosts manifest. Angels intervene. Demons terrorise. They don’t just make knocking noises. This smacks of a third-rate seance. Let’s reject Theory B for now.’

Through the open windows of the music room, across the lawn, wafts the sound of thirty boys singing ‘ Summer is a-cumin in … ’

‘You’ll like Theory C the least. It posits that Knock Knock is a psychosis, with no external reality. In a nutshell: you’re nuts.’

Boys spilled out of the Old Palace down the slope.

‘But I hear Knock Knock as clearly as I hear you.’

‘Did Joan of Arc really hear the voice of God?’

A cloud shifted and the oak tree cast a dappled net. ‘So the more real Knock Knock feels, the crazier I am?’

Formaggio took off his glasses to clean the lenses. ‘Yes.’

‘Before that cricket match, I was the only one living in my head. Now, there are two. Even when Knock Knock isn’t knocking, I know he’s there. I know that sounds crazy. I can’t prove I’m not, I suppose. But can you prove I am?’