Дэвид Митчелл - Utopia Avenue

Griff makes a megaphone of his hands: ‘A tattoo.’

‘You’re treading on my lines, Griff! Next up – the man who penned Utopia Avenue’s first hit, first of many, I have no doubt. Our King of the Stratocaster, Jasper de Zoet!’ He mispronounces Jasper’s name and raises his glass. Jasper avoids all the eyes by focusing very hard on the flake of pastry on Howie Stoker’s lapel.

Chingggggggggggg. ‘I’m not a man to blow my own trumpet,’ says Howie Stoker, brushing his lapel, ‘so I won’t bang on about my instrumental role – pun intended, you betcha – in creating Utopia Avenue. So I’ll let the results speak for themselves and say a few words about my guide and my mentor – my own “gut instinct”. Expertise is cheap. Expertise you can learn, hire or poach. But guts? You’ve got it or you ain’t. Am I right, Victor?’

The A&R man raises his glass at Howie. ‘Too true, Howie.’

‘You see? And when I first met Levon at Bertolucci’s on Seventh Avenue, where Rob Redford, Dick Burton and Humph Bogart often eat, my gut said, “ Howie, this is your man. ” Same story when I heard the tapes of the band’s Marquee show. My gut literally sat up and told me, “ This is your band. ” When I met Victor at the Dorchester – why stay anywhere else when en frolique in London, right? – my gut said, “ This is the label. ” Bang bang bang! Over sixteen thousand sales and one stellar performance on the English TV showcase prove that my gut was on the money again.’

‘Guts,’ Griff says in Jasper’s ear, ‘are full o’ fookin’ shit.’

‘Do you know the best part?’ Howie Stoker’s grin sweeps the room. ‘This is just the beginning. Victor, I think the hour is nigh for your surprise announcement, s’il vous plaît. ’

‘Thanks for that inspirational speech, Howie,’ Victor French says. ‘I do indeed bear glad tidings. I just got off the blower with Toto Schiffer in Hamburg. Ilex’s head honcho. He’s given us the green light to record not only a follow-up single to “Darkroom” but also … an LP.’

Bea, Jude and Elf let out a spontaneous ‘Wooh-wooh!’

‘Back o’ the fookin’ net!’ says Griff.

Dean tilts his chair. ‘Thought yer’d never ask.’

‘You’ll need to get cracking,’ Victor French tells the band. ‘We want the LP in the shops well before Christmas.’

‘No problem,’ promises Levon. ‘The band has a stack of gig-polished songs ready for vinyl.’

‘Ideally, we’ll release a second single a week before the album,’ says Nigel Horner. ‘Maximum noise is the name of the game.’

‘I’ll review the gig-book first thing,’ says Levon. ‘Ditch a few of the smaller-fry bookings to make room for studio sessions.’

‘Any chance of a real studio this time?’ asks Dean.

‘Fungus Hut did a good enough job on “Darkroom”,’ says Victor French. ‘Competitive prices, too.’

Levon straightens his tie. ‘I know the band will repay Mr Schiffer’s faith with one of the albums of the year.’

‘You’re being very quiet, Jasper,’ comments Howie.

Jasper isn’t sure if this is a criticism or an invitation to speak. He sips at his wine glass and finds it empty.

‘We’ll need a couple of new songs out of you,’ says Nigel Horner. ‘Something as catchy as “Darkroom”. Please.’

‘I’ll do my best.’ Jasper wants all the eyes off him. He has to concentrate on what he’s afraid he can hear.

‘Me ’n’ Elf write songs too, yer know,’ says Dean.

Here it is … a steady knuckle-on-wood. Knock … knock … knock … quieter than Dean’s protestations, but louder than it was the other day. Nobody else hears it. This message has only one addressee.

Jasper followed Formaggio’s advice and kept a notebook entitled ‘K2’ for the twelve months between April 1962 and April 1963. In it, he recorded the times, durations and contexts of Knock Knock’s ‘episodes’, written in Dutch. Jasper adopted musical notation to describe the varying styles of knocking: f for forte , ff , fff , cres. for crescendo, bruscamente , rubato , etc. The data established several facts. Knock Knock’s visits tended to cluster close to noon and midnight. Visits were as likely to occur when Jasper was alone as they were when in company, in the shower, studying, in choir, or in the refectory. As the year progressed, the frequency increased from two, three or four visits a week to two, three or four a day. Knock Knock accompanied Jasper to his summer lodgings at Domburg in Zeeland. The knockings lengthened from the triad of knock-knocks heard on the cricket pitch to complex strings of knocks that lasted up to a minute. They also grew louder or nearer. Jasper sensed an intelligence behind the knocks. Sometimes the quality of the knocking sounded desperate, or angry, or grim. Attempts to communicate with Knock Knock – tap once for yes, twice for no – came to nothing. Despite this increased activity, as the months passed, Jasper grew accustomed to him. As aural hallucinations went, a knocking sound was relatively innocuous. It wasn’t a voice claiming to be God, or the devil telling him to kill himself, or even the hanged Jacobite reputed to haunt the stairwell of Swaffham House. Compared to Jasper’s classmates who endured epilepsy, the after-effects of polio, blindness in one eye or even a severe stammer, Knock Knock was an easy cross to bear. The loyal Formaggio told nobody, and maintained his curiosity about his roommate’s oddity, but days might pass without the boys mentioning it. Days that Jasper would soon look back upon as the closing of a golden age.

‘Those lyrics,’ Victor French tells Jasper, ‘in the last verse of “Darkroom”: “ We hid under trees from the rain and the dice; but under the trees the rain rains twice. ” I don’t know what it means, but I know what it means.’ A hotel waiter is pouring coffee into china cups from a narrow-spouted silver jug. Port is distributed on silver trays. ‘Where do words like that come from?’

Jasper wishes he could celebrate Top of the Pops by smoking a joint on a rowing boat on the Serpentine, away from Victor French and Howie Stoker and anyone who requires him to act. ‘It’s hard to talk about writing. I get my words from the same place where you get yours: the language that calls itself “English”. What catches your eye, or ear, are the combinations I put those words into. Ideas float in, like seeds, from the world, from art, from dreams. Or they just occur to me. I don’t know how or why. Then I’ll have a line, which I try to massage so it scans into the rhythm of the whole. I have to consider rhyme, too. Am I choosing an easily rhyme-able last word? Is it too easy to rhyme? Cliché that way lies. Never rhyme “fire” with “desire”. Or “hold me tight” with “tonight”. If it’s too artful, it sounds contrived. “Pepsi Cola” and “Angola”.’

‘Fascinating.’ Victor French glances at his watch.

Bruce swaps his empty port glass for a full one, ‘Elf looked incredible on the TV monitors earlier. The camera adored her.’

‘We all scrubbed up nicely,’ says Elf.

‘I’m waiting for Vogue to call about a cover issue,’ says Griff. ‘I may get a matching scar on the other side of my face.’

‘Any woman on Top of the Pops gets a lot of camera time,’ says Elf. ‘We’re an exotic species on the show.’

‘It’s your folk background,’ says Bruce. ‘Folk’s all about rapport and authenticity. That’s what the camera picked up on.’

Dean exhales a blade of smoke. ‘Yer reckon folk music’s got a monopoly on authenticity, do yer Bruce?’