Дэвид Митчелл - Utopia Avenue

‘Down the passageway, second on the left.’

Stewart followed the directions while Kenny went to inspect the record collection.

‘I’m glad for yer, Dean.’ Rod Dempsey had a chequered reputation in Gravesend. At sixteen, he was sent to Borstal for torching his truancy officer’s car; at eighteen, he joined a biker gang; at twenty, he fell through a skylight during a burglary and lost an eye. He left prison homeless, jobless and penniless, but Bill Shanks loaned him enough to open a market stall dealing in biker gear. Now he had a shop in Camden Town.

‘You too,’ Dean told him.

‘We use the gifts we’re given. Speaking of which.’ From his jacket he took a tin of Nipits liquorice pellets and gave it to Dean.

Inside was a lump of hash as big as his thumb.

Dean held it up. ‘Standing by for take-off …’

Are You Experienced boomed out of Jasper’s speakers . Dean stretched out on the fleecy rug, sinking into Noel Redding’s bass on ‘The Wind Cries Mary’. The darkness was coloured by a glow-in-the-dark Dutch gnome called Mr Kabouter. Kenny passed him the joint. ‘Spill the beans, Rock Star.’

Dean toked. He floated and sank. ‘What beans?’

Stew knew what he meant. ‘How many girls’ve had the Dean Moss Experience in yer shag-pad?’

‘I don’t notch ’em on my bedpost.’

‘Are yer in double figures?’ probed Kenny. ‘Are yer still knobbing that hairdresser from Brighton?’

Dean passed the joint to Rod. ‘This is God’s own dope.’

‘Helmand Chestnut, brought from Afghanistan in the panels of a VW van. Seeing as we’ve got history, I can get it you at cost.’

It dawned on Dean that Rod Dempsey wasn’t dealing only in biker accessories. ‘I’ll bear that in mind.’

‘The hairdresser,’ Kenny reminded him. ‘Yer stalling.’

Dean’s conscience gave him a slap. ‘I see Jude on ’n’ off.’

‘Yer bastard ,’ groaned Kenny. ‘Why did I give up the music? I soddin’ hate my job. The gaffer’s a ponce. Shop steward’s a berk.’

‘But yer’ve got a girlfriend,’ pointed out Stew.

‘She’s all nag, no shag.’ The dope made Kenny confessional. ‘I tell her, “Let’s just do it.” She gets weepy, and goes all, “Are yer playing me for a fool, Kenny?” If I was Dean, if I was on Top o’ the shittin’ Pops , I’d give her the heave-ho, swan around Soho ’n’ drop acid ’n’ sleep with models ’n’ hippie chicks and do something with my life. I’m dying in Gravesend.’

‘Follow in Dean’s footsteps, then,’ said Rod. ‘Like they say with the football pools, “ If you are not in, you cannot win. ”’

Kenny toked. ‘For two pins, I’d move up tomorrow.’

Dean considered giving an honest account of how the modest advance from Ilex hadn’t paid off his debts to Moonwhale, Selmer’s Guitars and his brother; how his slice of the ‘Darkroom’ money won’t add up to three wage-slips from a union job like Kenny’s … but their envy tasted too good. ‘It ain’t all cakes ’n’ ale.’

‘Says he with a flat in Mayfair …’ Stew took the joint. ‘With his mug on the telly and a bird he “sees on and off”.’

‘All shag, no nag,’ remarked Kenny.

‘Got any famous mates yet?’ asked Stew.

For a few seconds Dean considered saying no. The bass on ‘3rd Stone from the Sun’ giddy-upped. ‘Does Brian Jones count?’

‘ The Brian Jones?’ Stew gaped. ‘From the Rolling Stones?’

‘Of course he bloody counts,’ said Kenny. ‘Brian Jones!’

Dean buzzed with the dope. ‘We bump into each other on the scene. We talk guitars, venues, labels. Just between us, he’s a bit slow to buy his rounds.’ Dean’s half-fib grows into a lie. ‘Unlike Hendrix. Jimi’d give you the shirt off his back.’

‘Yer know Hendrix?’ asked Kenny. ‘I don’t bloody believe it!’

But they did believe it, and Dean’s escape from Gravesend never felt so secure or so triumphant. He passed the joint to Rod, whose one eye housed a tiny, reflected, grinning, glow-in-the-dark Mr Kabouter, in on the secret.

Later that evening, Dean and Kenny were waiting at the bar of the Bag o’ Nails. Rod and Stew had gone to find a table. Dean slipped five one pound notes into his friend’s pocket. ‘That’s that fiver yer lent me last year, The 2i’s bar. Not a quick grope in yer trousers.’

‘Cheers, Dean. Thought yer’d forgotten.’

‘Never. Yer saved my arse. Thanks.’

‘Yer’ve come a long way since then.’

‘S’pose so.’

‘Seriously, I want a bite o’ this,’ said Kenny. ‘London. Could I doss on yer sofa for a bit?’

Dean pictured Kenny trading on the scene as Dean Moss’s best mate, and didn’t relish the idea. ‘What’d yer do here?’

‘What you’ve done. Get a guitar, write a few songs, put a band together. I wasn’t the worst guitarist in the Gravediggers, was I?’

‘Mate, it’s a cut-throat game.’

‘It’s working out sweet enough for you.’

‘Yeah, but I’ve practised guitar for … years. ’

‘Or I could dust off my art diploma, get a job at Oz or the International Times. Or sell antiques up the Portobello. Or set myself up as a photographer. All I need’s a base. So … yer sofa?’

He’s got no idea , thinks Dean. ‘Thing is, it ain’t my sofa. It’s Jasper’s dad’s, and he could turf us out at any time. If yer serious, yer’ll need somewhere more stable. It’s Rod yer want to speak to.’

Before Kenny cottoned on that he was being given the brush-off, Dean caught the barman’s eye. ‘Four pints o’ Smithwick’s!’

The last band on at the Bag o’ Nails was a five-piece from Ipswich called Andronicus. They weren’t great, but they kept up a driving, danceable beat and Dean, in his Napoleon coat from I Was Lord Kitchener’s Valet, invented a new dance called ‘The Flamingo’. He couldn’t afford the coat, but he figured he’d soon be able to. Dean felt overwhelmed by love. Love for his brothers and sister in music, Jasper, Elf and Griff. Love for Levon, whose name had ‘love’ hiding inside it. Love for his mum, who’d slipped away with the wonderful, the marvellous, the beautiful ‘Tennessee Waltz’ . Dean wiped his eyes. Love for Little Richard, for saving that snotty Tarzan boy at the Folkestone Odeon. Love for Nan Moss and Bill. He swore he’d buy them a bungalow in Broadstairs, maybe, with his first royalty cheque from ‘Abandon Hope’, or the second cheque, or the third. Love for Ray, his nephew Wayne and, okay, pregnant Shirl his sister-in-law. Harry Moffat could wait for his handout in Hell – even Rod’s happy pills had limits. But Dean felt love for the pirate-eyed Rod, who supplied these magic pills at cost. Love for Andronicus and every other musical mediocrity whose murk let Utopia Avenue shine all the brighter. Love for Jude, fast asleep in Brighton. Dean had been ordinary too, not so long ago. Love for Stew and his old friend Kenny – even if he didn’t want to babysit him. Love rotated its beam like a lighthouse on a rock. When Andronicus finished, Dean went to the bar and told the barman, ‘Drinks for my friends!’

The barman asked, ‘Who’re your friends?’

Dean looked at the faces. ‘All of ’em!’

The barman looked dubious. ‘ All of them?’

‘Everyone! The lot! Put ’em on my tab.’

‘Who are you again?’ replied the barman.

‘Dean Moss. My band’s Utopia Avenue. We were on Top of the Pops last month. And I would like a tab.’

The barman did not say, ‘ Sorry, Mr Moss, I didn’t recognise you. ’ The barman said, ‘Can’t open a tab without the boss’s say-so.’