Дэвид Митчелл - Utopia Avenue

‘It’s your word against that of an Italian police captain. You’re facing a minimum sentence of three years, if found guilty.’

It won’t come to that. It won’t come to that. ‘Do I get a lawyer? Or is it trial by witchcraft?’

‘The state will engage a lawyer. Of sorts. But Italian justice is more glacial than British. You’ll be held for at least twelve months.’

Dean pictures his cell. ‘Bail?’

‘No chance. The judge will assume you’re a flight risk.’

‘So why’re yer here, Mr Symonds? To gloat at an oik with girl’s hair? Or d’yer help people who didn’t go to Oxbridge too?’

Symonds is mildly amused. ‘I’ll submit a standard plea for clemency, citing your youth and inexperience.’

‘When’ll I hear if the plea’s worked or not? Today?’

‘Monday’s a slow day in Italy. Wednesday, with luck.’

‘Are there any fast days in Italy?’

‘No. The upcoming election doesn’t help.’

‘How long can they hold me before charging me?’

‘Seventy-two hours, unless a magistrate grants an extension. Which is amply possible in a case like yours.’

‘Can I see my friends?’

‘I’ll ask, but the captain will tell me that he can’t have you orchestrating your stories.’

‘The only story is, “A bent little Mussolini planted drugs on an innocent Brit.” Can I have a toothbrush – or access to my suitcase, for clean clothes? My cell’s a bloody khazi.’

‘It was never going to be the Hilton, Mr Moss.’

Twat. ‘I’m not asking for the Hilton. I’m asking for a mattress that isn’t crawling with bedbugs. Look at these bite marks.’

Symonds looks. ‘I’ll mention your mattress.’

‘Yer wouldn’t have a packet o’ fags on yer, would yer?’

‘It’s against the rules, Mr Moss.’

Hours die slowly back in Dean’s cell. He imagines Ferlinghetti imagining him starting to crack. The prisoner’s only counter-move is not to crack. He imagines his Fender around his neck and works through the bass parts on Paradise Is the Road to Paradise , song by song. He plays ‘Blues Run The Game’ on an imaginary acoustic. He imagines the flat in Chetwynd Mews and surveys it, room by room, searching for details he didn’t know he’d stored away: smells, the feel of the boards through his socks; the spider-plant; the tobacco tin he keeps his weed in; the pirate on that tin; the resistance of the lid as you open it. He imagines having to do this for three years. He senses a crack. Stop it. A jug of water is put through the hatch, with a sliver of soap and a used toothbrush. He drinks half of the water, then uses the remainder to give himself a stand-up wash over the shit-hole. He gives the toothbrush a miss. Through the gridded window, his second evening of captivity fades. The lamp flickers on. Dean hears another mosquito; sees it; tracks it; kills it. Sorry, mate, but it’s you or me. Dean does a hundred sit-ups. His underpants stick to his skin. The light clicks off . What if I don’t get out? What if I don’t see Elf ’n’ Ray ’n’ Jasper ’n’ Griff ’n’ Nan Moss ’n’ Bill again?

Dean lies down on the bed. It squeaks.

But I will see them again. Griff won’t see his brother again. Imogen won’t see her son again. Elf won’t see her nephew again. Those candles’re snuffed out. Mine are still burning …

In a heart of the eternal labyrinth known as Rome, Dean came across a hidden square. A rust-speckled blue sign read ‘ Piazza della Nespola ’ . Old men played chess in the shade of a tree. Women talked. Boys bragged, laughed and kicked a ball about. Girls watched. A dog had three legs. The piazza was warm in a way Gravesend is never warm. Its flagstones and cobbles gave up the stored heat of midday. Dean heard a clarinet, but he couldn’t work out through which window, over which balcony, the melody was calling. He wished he could notate it, like Jasper or Elf. Dean knew it would be gone, later. He knew he should get back to the hotel, over the river, over the bridge, but some spell made him linger. On the offal-pink wall, on crumbling plaster, on terracotta bricks, graffiti read, CHIEDIAMO L’IMPOSSIBILE and LUCREZIA TI AMERÒ PER SEMPRE and OPPRESSIONE = TERRORISMO . Starlings streamed through gaps of sky. A tall narrow gateway drew Dean up a half-dozen steps and into a church. Gold glittered on darkness. Incense hung in the air. People came in, lit candles, knelt, prayed and left like customers in a post office. Dean didn’t believe but here, it didn’t matter. He lit a candle for the dead: for Mum, for Steven Griffin, and for Elf’s baby nephew Mark. He lit another for the living: for Ray, Shirl and Wayne; for Nan Moss and Bill; for Elf, Jasper, Levon and Griff. A small choir sang. Pure vocal stacks rose all the way to the distant roof. Dean had to leave, but a part of him never would. In memory and in dream, he’d revisit this lacuna in time and in space. The place was a part of him now. Every lifetime, every spin of the wheel, holds a few such lacunae. A jetty by an estuary, a single bed under a skylight, a bandstand in a twilit park, a hidden church in a hidden square. The candles at the altar did not burn out.

Day three begins. Tuesday. Elf and Bethany must know by now. Bedbugs have snacked on Dean again. He wonders if Symonds mentioned the mattress to Ferlinghetti. What wouldn’t I give for one cigarette? Rod Dempsey told Dean that a British prison is like a rough hostel. There are tribes and gangs, but if you keep your head down, you get through it. Would an Italian prison be as survivable? He doesn’t speak the language. When he’s out, what then? Johnny Cash managed a career after prison, but Dean’s no Johnny Cash. Jasper and Elf couldn’t be expected to sit around twiddling their thumbs until 1971. Footsteps approach. The hatch in the door slides open. A breakfast tray is pushed through.

‘My friends? My lawyer? Ferlinghetti?’

Everything on the tray is the same as yesterday.

‘New cell?’ Dean asks through the hatch. ‘New mattress? Ambassador? Cigarette? Acknowledge my sodding existence?’

The hatch snaps shut. Dean eats the bread. He scoops off the froth and chances the coffee. He thinks of Nan Moss’s apple pie and battered cod and chips. He puts the vassoio by the hatch. ‘Don’t make an enemy o’ the screws,’ Rod Dempsey told him. ‘The fuckers’ve got the power o’ life ’n’ death over yer …’

Dean wonders if Symonds has lodged that appeal for clemency yet. He wonders if Elf or Bethany believes he was stupid enough to take drugs through an airport. He wonders how things are at Elf’s sister’s. Footsteps approach. Dean’s pretty sure it’s Big Cop. The hatch snaps open. The tray is exchanged for a half-roll of toilet paper. The hatch snaps shut. There’s more paper on the roll than yesterday. Does this mean I’m not going anywhere?

Dean thinks about the thing called ‘freedom’.

All his life he’d had it but didn’t even notice it.

Time passes. Time passes. Time passes.

Footsteps approach. The hatch in the door snaps open.

A tray is pushed through. Bread, a banana and water.

Lunch. The banana’s old and foamy. Dean doesn’t mind.

Symonds said he has to be charged within seventy-two hours.

Ferlinghetti made it clear whose word is the real law.

Dean leaves the tray by the hatch.

Yes, sir, no, sir, three bags full, sir …

Good prisoners might get an extra banana.

I thought I knew boredom: I never had a bloody clue.

Small wonder half the prison population’s on drugs.

It’s not to get high: it’s to kill time before time kills you.