Дэвид Митчелл - Utopia Avenue

What we make, we are .

Levon is waking up …

Chilly light seeps in. Levon is lying on a battered sofa in a messy sitting room. Books. Bottles. Bowls. Objets . A mirror, cracked into a jagged flower of shards. He has no idea where he is. He remembers Colm – but remembers Colm had left. Levon sits up. Delicately . Sash windows, overlooking a London mews, much like Jasper’s but with higher sides. A soggy winter sky, like sodden toilet paper. Levon is fully clothed. He needs a bath. His keys and wallet are on the corner of the coffee-table. The smell of cigarettes and beef dripping. The door opens and Francis Bacon peers in wearing a smoking jacket over pyjamas. He has a black eye and his lip is cut. ‘Ah, you’re alive. That simplifies matters.’

‘What happened to you?’

‘Nothing happened to me.’

‘But your face! Somebody beat the crap—’

With casual finality: ‘You’re mistaken.’

Levon remembers Lazarus Dives: All tastes catered for.

‘Hair of the dog.’ Francis hands him a tomato juice.

Levon sniffs it. ‘A Bloody Mary?’

‘Don’t argue with Nurse.’

Levon sips the red gloop and feels better. ‘It’s good.’

‘I’ve given a little thought to your predicament.’

‘My predicament?’

‘Your drummer, the band, doubt, failure, et cetera.’

‘I told you all that?’

‘In the taxi, you spilled your guts, so to speak.’

Now he mentions it , thinks Levon, I think I did …

Francis Bacon lights a cigarette and tops up his Bloody Mary with a generous glug of vodka. ‘Levon, I don’t know you from Adam. We may meet again, or we may not. London’s a metropolis and a village. You’re not an artist per se but you enable the artists who make the art. What you are is an enabler. An assembler. A builder. This is a calling. You don’t get the glory. You don’t get remembered. But you don’t get devoured. And you do get the money. If that’s not good enough, go and play golf.’ A mouse watches from behind a jar of turpentine on a shelf by Francis’s shoulder. ‘If this drummer boy of yours emerges from his Nighttime of the Soul, good. If he doesn’t, get another. In any event, stop feeling so fucking sorry for yourself, and get back to work.’ The artist downs his Bloody Mary. ‘Now, I’m going up to my studio to follow my own advice. When you leave pull the front door shut. It needs a good, hard slam .’

If January was a place, it would be Kensington Gardens this morning. The trees are bare and dark. The flowerbeds are flowerless. It may be Sunday, but there’s no sun to be seen or felt. The sky is somehow not quite there. Gulls, geese and ducks on the Round Pond honk and bellow. It’s cold. Nobody lingers for long. Nobody lingers at all. Levon’s glad of the scarf he stole from Francis Bacon’s coat-stand. He’ll return it if his conscience insists, but he doubts it will. The shops around Paddington are mostly shut. Few cars are about. No kids are playing in Queens Gardens. He climbs up to his flat, starts a bath running, cleans his teeth, makes a pot of tea and brings it into the bathroom on a tray. He retrieves his notebook from its drawer, sinks into the hot soapy water and reads the four verses he wrote on the train from Hull. I need a final verse. Levon knows it’s on its way. A new verse, to flip the whole poem on its head. He wonders if Colm has scrubbed his biroed number off his palm, or if the telephone might ring today.

Maybe in the next few minutes.

Maybe in the next few seconds.

Prove It

Aglow in the stage-lights of McGoo’s, eight women rest their pints of bitter on the stage. Four are in tears. Two are mouthing the words, prayerfully. Gotcha! thinks Elf. Until two Thursdays ago, Utopia Avenue was thought of as a male acid-flecked R&B band with a novelty girl. Elf suspected that most of the women at their gigs were girlfriends in tow. Since she mimed singing ‘Mona Lisa Sings The Blues’ for the ten million viewers of The London Palladium Show , however, things have changed. McGoo’s is a Jack-the-laddish venue in Edinburgh – Steve Marriott and the Small Faces are here next weekend – but nearly half of the house tonight is female. As Elf hits the high E of the final chorus and Jasper, Dean and Griff fall quiet, her vocal is accompanied by, surely, a two-hundred-strong female choir blasting at top volume. I couldn’t sing off-key if I tried , she thinks, and doubles the usual length of her final ‘Bluuu uuu- uuu uuu es …’ Screw it , she thinks, I’ll go another four bars … Dean gives her a my-my-my smile. Jasper extends his falling note and Griff sits out the extra beats before playing the cymbal crescendo. The band is only two songs into a twelve-song set and he’s on industrial painkillers but he’s doing well. The sound of his gong is buried under cheers, stomps and applause. ‘Thank you,’ says Elf into the mic, looking at the eight women up front. One, the Queen of the Picts with wild black hair and arms like cables, makes a megaphone of her hands: ‘ We came althaway fro’ Glasgee f ’ thassong, Elf, an’ ye fookin’ nailed it! ’

Elf mouths, ‘Thank you,’ at her and leans into her mic. ‘Thanks, everyone. I wish we’d come here months ago.’

More applause, and blurred shouts, calls and whistles.

‘Holy God, I’ve missed this,’ continues Elf. ‘There were times in the last couple of months when the future didn’t look so great …’

The Pictish Queen calls out, ‘We know what ye’ve been through right enough, Elf!’

‘… but Edinburgh and Glasgow, you’ve brought us back and—’ People shout, ‘ Perth! ’ and ‘ Dundee! ’ and ‘ Aberdeen! ’ and ‘ Tober-fookin ’ -mory! ’ and Elf laughs. ‘Okay, okay – Scotland, you’ve blown away the darkness. So, our next song is …’ Elf looks for her set-list. ‘My set-list just combusted. Dean? What’s next?’

Dean calls over, ‘How ’bout yer new one?’

Elf hesitates. She’s pretty sure ‘Smithereens’ was the third song, and Dean isn’t one to give up the spotlight. ‘“Prove It”?’

Dean speaks into his mic. ‘Scotland, help us out. Elf’s written a new song and it’s bloody great. D’yer want to hear it or what?’

McGoo’s roars with approval. Griff plays a drum-roll. Dean cups his hand to his ear. ‘Didn’t quite catch that, Scotland. Was it Some Old Bollocks yer want next? Or was it Elf’s new one?’

The roar articulates itself: ‘ELF’S NEW ONE!’

Dean looks at Elf with a seems-pretty-clear face.

‘Okay. Okay. You’ve done it now.’ Elf flexes her fingers and starts her piano intro. Hush falls. She stops. ‘It’s called “Prove It” and it’s kind of, sort of, semi-, quasi-autobiographical … so, it’s about wounds that are still raw, so if I rush offstage halfway through, leaving a vapour trail of misery and tears, you’ll know why.’ She resumes her intro. The triad-based short piece was in her notebook for years, waiting for a home. Now it has one. Once its sixteen smoky bars are played out, Elf looks at Dean, who checks with Jasper, who glances at Griff, who counts off, ‘One, two, one-two one-two— ’ Boom ! Chacka-boom! Chacka-chacka-chacka-chacka-boom! In comes Dean’s bass march and Elf’s doomy piano riff, and by the fifth bar, the audience are clapping out the rhythm already. Elf leans into her mic:

‘They’re jealous of me!’ he left with a shout.

She was his fool so she followed him out.

He was the Romeo, she his sub-plot.