Дэвид Митчелл - Utopia Avenue

‘Nicole.’ She flutters her fingers. ‘Hi.’ A Mary Quant bob half hides her eyes. ‘Do I know you? It’s the hair.’

‘Jasper was on Top of the Pops this very eve,’ says Brian Jones.

‘I knew it!’ Nicole awards herself a round of applause. ‘Character is hair. Like Brian’s magic golden mop.’

‘The source of my sun-god virility,’ agrees Brian Jones.

‘If we shaved it off,’ adds Miss Cressy, ‘nobody would know him from a bleached Mr Potato Head.’

‘You’re a Leo,’ Cressy tells Jasper.

‘Pisces,’ replies Jasper.

‘That’s exactly the source of your pain. You’re a spiritual Leo trapped in a material Pisces.’

Jasper guesses he’s being flirted with, but Cressy looks young enough to have school in the morning. ‘I don’t complain.’

‘That’s the Leo talking,’ says Nicole. ‘Most men are frightful whingers. They should try having hair plucked from their privates. Oops.’ She puts her finger to her lips. ‘That just slipped out. I’m a teensy bit squiffy. I blame wicked Mr Jones.’

Brian Jones clinks his glass with Jasper’s. ‘The health of the salmon.’ He puffs on Nicole’s cigarette. Apollo is flaking.

‘You were going to tell me more about the messages you get in your head,’ Jasper says. ‘Then Steve Marriott came up.’

Brian Jones’s eyes dart around Jasper’s face. ‘Was that only this evening? It feels like much longer ago.’

‘I’ll cast a spell of protection,’ says Nicole. ‘I did a witchcraft course. My teacher was Morgan le Fay in a former life.’

‘Miss Cressy,’ says Brian Jones, ‘fingers off my nipples, please. There’s a time and a place.’

‘Which is not what he said in the loos at the Flamingo club,’ Cressy tells Jasper. ‘Oops. It slipped out.’

‘Ladies,’ says Brian Jones, ‘my friend and I need a little privacy. Amuse yourselves for a few minutes.’

‘Spoilsports,’ pouts Nicole. The women vacate the booth.

Brian Jones leans in. The brim of his hat touches Jasper’s head. ‘Me, Keith and Mick were living in a shit-hole in Chelsea. They started then. It comes and goes. Sometimes they’re friendly. They’ll say, “ Damn good job, Brian. ” Other times they’ll tell me what a piece of shit I am. Others it sends me off on wild goose chases. Like tonight. “ Lime Grove Studios! Go go go go go ! ” Do you think it’s just my unconscious? Perhaps I’ve done too much acid. Do I sound like a crank?’

‘I don’t judge anyone. I was in an asylum for two years.’

Brian Jones is hard to decipher. ‘I ought to know you.’

Nearby, a tray of glasses is dropped. A cheer explodes.

Hurry . ‘Has your voice ever struck you as evil?’

Brian Jones drinks whisky. ‘Why do you ask?’

Jasper lay in Matron’s room at Bishop’s Ely. A headache had turned cyclonic. Matron had given him an aspirin, then had to run an errand. Thunder ricocheted across the Fens. The May afternoon was dark as an eclipse. There was a knock-knock at the door. Jasper waited for whoever it was to come in, or go.

There was a knock-knock at the door.

Jasper called, ‘Matron’s not here.’

There was a knock-knock at the door.

Jasper called, ‘Come in, then.’

There was a knock-knock at the door.

Jasper guessed it was a timid first-year. He swung off the bed, his brain banging his skull’s interior, and walked over to the door.

Nobody was in the corridor outside.

Jasper guessed it was a prank and shut the door.

Immediately there was a knock-knock at the door.

Jasper flung open the door.

Nobody was in the corridor. Nobody.

Jasper’s eardrums popped. He shivered.

Knock Knock? thought-spoke Jasper. Is that you?

Nobody replied. Jasper closed the door.

There was a knock-knock at the door.

The knocking could only be in Jasper’s head.

The first bullets of rain smashed on the window.

Like knuckles on wood, came a knock-knock .

Jasper felt Knock Knock watching him with the intensity of a marksman, or a psychologist, or a bird of prey. Rain smattered Ely’s old stones, old slates, the river, its tarmac and the roofs of cars. A cacophony broke over Jasper – knock knock knock- KNOCK- KNOCK -KNOCK- knocketty- knock. He stumbled back to bed and pulled the blanket over his head. Jasper recited, ‘I’m not insane, I’m not insane, I’m not insane …’ guessing this was exactly what the insane do as they vanish down the helter-skelter.

Abruptly, the knocking stopped.

Jasper waited for it to begin again.

He emerged from his blanket.

The rain had stopped. Water dripped.

There was a knock-knock at the door.

Jasper’s only recourse was to refuse to answer.

After another knock-knock , the door opened, and a nervous first-year in a uniform two sizes too big stepped in. ‘Hello. Is Matron here? Mr Kingsley says I look like death warmed up.’

That night, Jasper had a dream of cinematic clarity. Snow was falling onto a mountain temple of high walls, curved roofs and pine trees. The dream was set in Japan. Women swept wooden walkways with rustic brooms. Several were pregnant. A curving tunnel lit by dream-light led into a domed chamber. It housed an erect-backed, kneeling goddess, three or four times the size of a human woman, sculpted from a block of night sky. Her cupped hands made a hollow the size of a cradle. Her eyes gazed into the hollow. Her predatory mouth opened wide. If the shrine of Shiranui is a question , spoke a thought, here is the answer. Swaying flames were moonflower blue and silent. Realising he had been lured to that place to be sacrificed, Jasper fled back down the curving tunnel to the temple. Wooden screens slid shut behind him. Knock, knock, knock, knock. He reached his room at Swaffham House in this world, bolted the door and hid in his bed. But still he heard it. Knock-knock, knock-knock … Knock Knock was knocking a hole in the wall between the snowy temple in Japan and his room in Ely, and this mustn’t, mustn’t happen … but it already had …

‘Shit,’ says Brian Jones. ‘Sounds like a bad trip.’ The smoke in the Scotch of St James turns the lights brown. Jasper keeps drinking his whisky but his glass never empties. The Stone asks, ‘Were you all acid-heads at this school of yours?’

‘The only acid we knew were acid drops, the boiled sweets; hydrochloric acid; and battery acid. This was still 1962.’

‘Was “Heinz Formaggio” a real name?’ asks Brian Jones. ‘Heinz as in Baked Beans? “Formaggio” as in “cheese” in Italian?’

‘Yes. He’s German-Italian-Swiss. Outside a bad trip, have you ever experienced anything like Knock Knock?’

Brian Jones squints. ‘My messages are nasty sometimes, but your Knock Knock sounds—’

‘It’s a nightmare, de Zoet!’ A familiar voice reached him across a vast divide. ‘You’re having a nightmare. Jasper! Wake up.’

Jasper sat bolt upright, staring at a face he knew, but not yet sure if it was Now, Then, or Will Be.

It was Formaggio. Confusingly, they were in their dorm. Jasper thought he was in Matron’s room. The knocking had ceased.

‘You were talking in a foreign language,’ said Formaggio. ‘Not Dutch. This was really foreign. Chinese or something.’

The alarm clock said a quarter past one.

‘What happened?’ asked Formaggio.

There was a knock-knock at the door.

Jasper looked at Formaggio, hoping he had heard it.